will be--you," he whispered in her ear.

"You are Satan!" she said, in a sort of terror.

"No, I am something of a poet, like all the men of my region. Come,
be my Josephine! I'll go and see you to-morrow. I have the most ardent
desire to see where you live and how you live, the furniture you use,
the color of your stuffs, the arrangement of all things about you. I
long to see the pearl in its shell."

He slipped away cleverly after these words, without waiting for an
answer.

Flavie, to whom in all her life love had never taken the language of
romance, sat still, but happy, her heart palpitating, and saying to
herself that it was very difficult to escape such influence. For the
first time Theodose had appeared in a pair of new trousers, with gray
silk stockings and pumps, a waistcoat of black silk, and a cravat of
black satin on the knot of which shone a plain gold pin selected with
taste. He wore also a new coat in the last fashion, and yellow gloves,
relieved by white shirt-cuffs; he was the only man who had manners, or
deportment in that salon, which was now filling up for the evening.

Madame Pron, nee Barniol, arrived with two school-girls, aged seventeen,
confided to her maternal care by families residing in Martinique.
Monsieur Pron, professor of rhetoric in a college presided over by
priests, belonged to the Phellion class; but, instead of expanding on
the surface in phrases and demonstrations, and posing as an example, he
was dry and sententious. Monsieur and Madame Pron, the flowers of the
Phellion salon, received every Monday. Though a professor, the little
man danced. He enjoyed great influence in the quarter enclosed by the
boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, the Luxembourg, and the rue de Sevres.
Therefore, as soon as Phellion saw his friend, he took him by the
arm into a corner to inform him of the Thuillier candidacy. After ten
minutes' consultation they both went to find Thuillier, and the recess
of a window, opposite to that where Flavie still sat absorbed in her
reflections, no doubt, heard a "trio" worthy, in its way, of that of the
Swiss in "Guillaume Tell."

"Do you see," said Theodose, returning to Flavie, "the pure and honest
Phellion intriguing over there? Give a personal reason to a virtuous man
and he'll paddle in the slimiest puddle; he is hooking that little Pron,
and Pron is taking it all in, solely to get your little Celeste for
Felix Phellion. Separate them, and in ten minutes they'll get